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James Makin's Workbench - 1990s dirty diesels & grotty wagons


James Makin
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Superb weathering on those 37/4s.

 

Reminded me of this photo of 37408 which I took at Glasgow Queen St. Looks even filthier than your rendering, but hadn't suffered much from rust

37408 at Glasgow QS (2).jpg

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1 hour ago, Alcanman said:

Superb weathering on those 37/4s.

 

Reminded me of this photo of 37408 which I took at Glasgow Queen St. Looks even filthier than your rendering, but hadn't suffered much from rust

37408 at Glasgow QS (2).jpg

37408 was repainted after your shot was taken into LLB c 1994 from memory. The easiest way to tell original from post repaint is after 1994 it had a yellow headcode panel

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Very nice, hopefully should be a good prompt to sort out some of my own stash of these.  There was a couple of handy flows of these into Cornwall in 1999

(part of the bottled water delivery’s for the eclipse and the return of the unused stock after)

 

they certainly look a lot more interesting once weathered!

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Running out of exclamations to describe your work James, so with no apologies of repeating myself, those vans are SUPERB! 

I love the way you put on layers and tiny strokes of paint and work it so that it doesn't look like a dab of paint, the staining around the handles is spot on!

Was the initial livery brush painted or airbrushed? 

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Thanks so much for the likes and comments!

 

On 04/06/2022 at 22:38, The Fatadder said:

Very nice, hopefully should be a good prompt to sort out some of my own stash of these.  There was a couple of handy flows of these into Cornwall in 1999

(part of the bottled water delivery’s for the eclipse and the return of the unused stock after)

 

they certainly look a lot more interesting once weathered!

 

Cheers Rich! The Eclipse brings back memories! It was fun reading back then about the varied special trains that went down and the use of new 66/0s on several of the charter trains for that! My auntie's family travelled down from Didcot to Cornwall for the event but said that after all that, it was just cloudy! Back down in Worthing we had full sun and my dad had rigged up this mirror arrangement to reflect the sun onto the house so we could watch a mini-eclipse on the back of the garage wall! Somewhere I've still got those cardboard Eclipse glasses that all the newsagents would be trying to flog 🤣

 

 

On 05/06/2022 at 12:05, geoff west said:

Great work James. Just how i remember seeing them at Didcot back in the 90's.

 

Thanks Geoff, I've long been inspired by the lines of them in the Yard as well as on the MoD trains coming in, I love how they pretty much all ended up in varied shades of pink! Many years ago I did have a bash at adding the A1 Models etched sides to a Hornby VDA to create a VAA, but made the mistake of using solvent glue which over the years has gradually deformed the van outwards with the most banana shaped sides!

 

5 hours ago, sb67 said:

Running out of exclamations to describe your work James, so with no apologies of repeating myself, those vans are SUPERB! 

I love the way you put on layers and tiny strokes of paint and work it so that it doesn't look like a dab of paint, the staining around the handles is spot on!

Was the initial livery brush painted or airbrushed? 

 

Haha, thanks very much Steve! The livery was just painted on with brushes, I rarely bother getting the airbrush out for the smaller vehicles, I used a flat wide brush which helped minimise the brush strokes but generally I don't get too many problems just brushing them on, plus it saves so much time and effort cleaning an airbrush too! I also find that the varnish layers do help in hiding a multitude of sins, anything that doesn't look right gets painted over again and by the time the spray varnish is added then it levels out the surface and bonds it all together!

 

Cheers,

James

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Lovely job as ever!

 

When you're doing your 'paint on wipe off' (said like Mr Miyagi) how much do you thin the paint? Or is it 'neat'? I keep thinking I'll give your methods a go!

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17 hours ago, njee20 said:

Lovely job as ever!

 

When you're doing your 'paint on wipe off' (said like Mr Miyagi) how much do you thin the paint? Or is it 'neat'? I keep thinking I'll give your methods a go!

 

Haha thanks Nick, for the paint on wipe off stage I tend to vary the thinness of the paint depending on the end effect. In many cases I'll go for neat Humbrol enamel paint, and the benefit is that it can be useful to heavily tint the underlying paint if desired, or give a good solid build up of colour in the recesses once any extra paint has been wiped away and wiped down further with enamel thinners on a cotton bud.

 

In other cases I'll go for a much more diluted wash, this is useful where I'm looking for a streaky finish, things like the sides of the diesel locos have a wash of almost 80% Humbrol thinners to 20% paint so it's super light and gives a very gradual build up of colour. I'll sometimes also vary how I apply it, sometimes I will pre-mix a wash and other times I'll almost mix it on the side of the model, adding a paintbrush laced with thinners (or paint) if I decide the consistency isn't right whilst actually on the model!

 

It's very much a case of just dabbling and seeing what works well, it doesn't always work well straight away and needs a lot of playing around, so I can't give more precise tips than that! I've been using this method for almost 20 years and am still learning on the shades to use, I just use enamels only and have been familiarising myself with how the different Humbrol shades work, as some definitely thin down better than others! I sometimes use Phoenix Paints also, but they dry extremely quickly so any washes of that need a lot more proportion of thinners to keep it wet before wiping off the excess colour.

 

One thing to watch for where I've tripped myself up in the past is that the washes with high concentrations of enamel thinners will start to strip through layers of dried varnish if left long enough, so nowadays I always leave a model for at least 1 month to fully harden to almost bullet-proof status before 'attacking' as there is nothing worse than wiping off your livery as well as your weathering 🤣 

 

The same goes for any RTR liveries as well, always do a pre-weathering coat of varnish to protect the surface, and then after all the weathering this is followed by a final coating, prior to the final airbrush weathering stage. It flattens the surfaces out slightly and removes some of the accidental sheen you get when doing the paint-on/wipe-off too.

 

Hope this helps!

James 

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Thanks James, that’s awesome! I’m still traumatised from varnishing a set of printed wagons; only to watch it eat the decals in front of my eyes, whilst helpfully varnishing the resulting mush!

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19 hours ago, njee20 said:

Thanks James, that’s awesome! I’m still traumatised from varnishing a set of printed wagons; only to watch it eat the decals in front of my eyes, whilst helpfully varnishing the resulting mush!

 

Ouch, that sounds painful to watch! I've had similar before when using certain varnishes that are just naughty! My current go-to varnish is Railmatch, their aerosol cans make it nice and easy to apply and the result is generally very smooth and nice. I have had mixed success with Humbrol aerosol varnish too, sometimes it is amazing in every way, the current formulation in recent couple of years seems very 'wet' and it's easy to flood a model with just 1 pass of the spray if not careful, but dries generally very well.

 

Where I've had the real pain is in some of the US brands of varnish, things like Testors, I'd heard great stuff about Dullcote but when trying it, it reacted with some Phoenix paints and certain Humbrol shades, but others it's fine, again the same with a few of the other varnishes that I've tried, and can also be volatile with Railtec decals too, so it's a gamble!

 

Yet to debut on these pages are a couple of weathered Bachmann BP green TEA bogie tankers that I sprayed in March 2019, I'd given them a coat of Testors varnish over a paint-on/wipe-off effect and had such a reaction that the varnish had given the tankers a complete crackle glaze finish, if you imagine looking at something like the dried salt flats in Utah 🤦‍♂️🤣 I keep meaning to get around to giving them a strip down and re-doing sometime, just goes to show that the varnishes can easily catch you out!

 

Cheers,

James

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It was Halfords lacquer I had a problem with; been fine previously, but didn’t work with the laser printed decals I’d switched to. 
 

look forward to seeing your green TEAs once restored to their glory! I think one of your first projects I read was the old BP grey TEA with the long yellow and green stripe!

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work greta as ever James, the recent vans are insanely good! have you ever considered a sped up Timelapse of you applying the different coats in this technique, so we can really get an idea of the different steps? thanks

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  • 3 weeks later...

More fantastic work James, I love the electrics and the patchy finish of 47 467 👍

I'm sure you've mentioned it before but which Matt varnish do you use? I've had problems with a Humbrol rattle can recently. 

Thanks for the heads up on the bookazine, I'm sure a copy will find it's way to my letterbox soon!

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Always nice to see a battered duff. This one is a stunner.

 

I'm also interested in matt varnishes - I've kinda given up on them and nowadays use railmatch satin which is the only varnish I've had success with.

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On 05/07/2022 at 06:19, sb67 said:

More fantastic work James, I love the electrics and the patchy finish of 47 467 👍

I'm sure you've mentioned it before but which Matt varnish do you use? I've had problems with a Humbrol rattle can recently. 

Thanks for the heads up on the bookazine, I'm sure a copy will find it's way to my letterbox soon!

 

On 05/07/2022 at 12:01, dj_crisp said:

Always nice to see a battered duff. This one is a stunner.

 

I'm also interested in matt varnishes - I've kinda given up on them and nowadays use railmatch satin which is the only varnish I've had success with.

 

Thanks ever so much guys!

 

I have been through a lot of trauma with various varnishes over the years 😄 For starters I always use aerosols as I just can't be bothered to load up an airbrush for a varnish coat!

 

My current favourite in recent times is Railmatch, their gloss and matt varnish aerosols have been pretty good in recent times, so are my go-to at the moment.

 

I used to use these in the distant past but had issues with aerosol cans blocking prematurely, and matt varnish that dried satin, so steered away from Railmatch, but in the last two-three years they have always been good. I always make a point of buying a fresh batch directly from Howes to be sure you're not lumbered with older stock from a model shop, and I'll always write the date of purchase, source & first use date on each aerosol can to help use the oldest first and help keep track in case any faulty ones need returning!

 

I've also had some success with Humbrol's matt and gloss varnish but recent batches in the last couple of years have been very watery - it's easy to flood a model with just one pass of the aerosol! I still have some stock of these but they have been 'downgraded' to be used on wagon projects only rather than any locos! I did have a very cloudy Humbrol varnish that almost ruined my BR green 47004 from many years ago, fortunately I managed to wipe off the varnish while wet and re-coat with Railmatch subsequently. 

 

Finally there are the 'others'! I often read about other people's varnish brands and give them a try. Testors varnish for me is highly volatile, it would crinkle up Railtec decals and cause crazing on certain paint surfaces (like Phoenix paints or certain Humbrols) randomly (remember those BP TEAs I mentioned that got mucked up!), and then I've experimented with some of the brands more popular in military modelling but the matt varnishes here can generally give a bit of a speckled finish or only semi-matt, or the dreaded orange peel, without warning! 

 

So all in all, Railmatch gets my current vote, as long as you get fresh versions every few months and praying that the makers HMG don't mess with the recipe!

 

Cheers,

James

 

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Thanks James, the Humbrol can I used dried almost white! I think I should get varnish from a Model shop with a high turnover,  probably online. I wonder if the can I got has been on the shelf a few years! 

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1 hour ago, sb67 said:

Thanks James, the Humbrol can I used dried almost white! I think I should get varnish from a Model shop with a high turnover,  probably online. I wonder if the can I got has been on the shelf a few years! 


Definitely this Steve!

I order from the source where possible to hope for the freshest batch! Humbrol aerosols from the Hornby website and Railmatch’s ‘home’ supplier is Howes of Oxford.

 

Cheers,

James

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5 hours ago, James Makin said:


Definitely this Steve!

I order from the source where possible to hope for the freshest batch! Humbrol aerosols from the Hornby website and Railmatch’s ‘home’ supplier is Howes of Oxford.

 

Cheers,

James

 

Ta James 👍

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I got so fed up with railmatch cans i brought a stock of their spare nozzles - like the varnish equivalent of Ipads and the bloody chargers .

 

Im currently back with humbrol - they don't seem to block so easy but granted they are a bit thick on the coating - better keep moving whilst spraying . hesitate at your peril !

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